January 10, 2009

The YCL condemns the complicity of the Harper Conservative government in the current genocidal war taking place in the Gaza strip which has so far lasted 11 days and cost over 550 lives.

On January 6th, in one of the most bloody incidents of the war so far, Israeli forces shelled a U.N. school, killing over 40 Palestinian civilians who were seeking shelter inside. The Israeli military has cynically blamed Hamas for the deaths, claiming that militants were hiding in the school, using the civilians as human shields.

On Wednesday, January 7th, Junior Foreign Minister Peter Kent was quoted stating "Hamas bears a terrible responsibility for this and for the wider deepening humanitarian tragedy." This view blames the victim while hailing the victimizer. Moreover, the Israeli military admitted today that no ordinance came from that school.

But it is not the Palestinian people, Hamas or otherwise, who are responsible for this war. It was Israel that broke the truce with Hamas. This is a war aimed at smashing the resistance of the Palestinian people to the Israeli apartheid state. It is part and parcel of the intensified campaign against the Palestinian people over the past few years and over the broader "war on terror" which is really aimed at securing the Middle East and its resources forexploitation by imperialist powers.

Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Vatican's Council for Justice and Peace, has echoed the voices of progressives worldwide, and said Gaza is a essentially a concentration camp.

Like those governments which stood with the racist South African regime before the victory of the national liberation movement in that country, Stephen Harper and his government are complicit with a racist, apartheid regime. And now, as the Harper government rallies around Israel's murderous war, it has become complicit in genocide.

The YCL endorses's CUPE Ontario's call for a boycott of all Israeli professors visiting Canadian campuses who do not condem this war. We stand with all youth and students of Canada mobilizing across the country and urge everyone to join these actions denouncing the war, and calling upon Israel to immediately stop the war and end theoccupation. We demand that the Harper government reverse their position in support of the war.

The Canadian people are right to draw the connection between the Harper government's attack on working people and equity seeking groups here at home and their support for the attacks of the reactionary Israeli government against the sovereign state of Palestine. These domestic and foreign policies favour the wealthy elite and attack the

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The Young Communist League of Canada is a marxist-leninist organization of youth who struggle for socialism and work to build a strong youth and student movement.

We are a multi-ethnic organization of young workers, employed and unemployed, young women and men. We work in movements for peace and democracy and against racism, sexism homophobia, national oppression and destruction of our environment.

We work in our unions and workplaces for better wages, and in our high schools for democratic and equal education, our colleges, universities and trade schools for accesibility. We bring forth these viewpoints through our League's agitational magazine, Rebel Youth.

We work together for a Canada without exploitation where the workers hold all political, social and economic power. We recognize that since youth are the future, we must play a vital role in fighting for socialism.